Summer Travel Tips

This summer we’ll be homebound while awaiting Baby Elephant #3’s arrival, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream of a vacay. Maybe this year it’ll be a stay-cation with a long day at Breakers Waterpark with the fam. But whatever your plans are this summer, I thought I’d give a list of a few helpful items to pack along for your travels, whether you cloth diaper, do a hybrid option, or use sposies while away from home.

Access to a washer & dryer, but not a diaper sprayer? Pack GroVia BioLiners to help make cleaning up messy diapers that much easier. These are flushable, and at most a quick swish in the toilet will be all you’ll need to do to rinse away any excess poo.

Don’t want to mess with cloth while away from home? GroVia BioSoakers make for a nice hybrid option. Use their OS Shells and a disposable {compostable, if you’re into it} BioSoaker for a green diapering system. GroVia shells wash up nicely in bathroom sinks, and they dry quickly. I even learned a great drying tip from a grandma at a diaper party. To help speed up the drying process if you are in a rush or a humid climate, use a dry towel to squeeze out excess water from the shell by rolling shell up tightly in the towel. This will help wick away even more water after an initial hand wringing. Another perk of traveling with BioSoakers is their compact size. A pack of 20 is smaller than a pack of 20 disposable diapers. And I normally travel with 4 shells, whether we’re gone for a weekend or a couple of weeks. You can read more about BioSoakers, and even see detailed pics of them on an older blog post. Warning! It was about a major tummy bug that was going through BW's system at the time. But the detailed pics showing how easy they are to use are good for those of you on the fence about whether to use these or not.

Let’s talk dirty clothes & diapers. Wet bags & pail liners are for more than just storing dirty diapers while away from home. I’ve used pail liners for keeping dirty clothes separate from clean clothes in suitcases. It makes unpacking and packing while on vacation a little more organized. And Lord knows I need help with keeping things organized, especially on vacation. Leslie’s Boutique Wet/Dry bags are great for keeping clean & dirty diapers or clothes together yet separate at the same time. So use them for days at the beach or resort pools. Stash sunscreen & hotel keys in the dry section too! Pack a few bags to ensure that you’ll always have a clean one when you need it. These can also be hand washed and line dried while on vacation.

Swim party! Don’t bring along disposable swim diapers. Pack a reusable swim diaper or two for your water activities while on vacation. These will take up less room than a pack of diapers, and are super easy to wash in the sink. Why should you pack 2 reusable swim diapers? This way if one is becomes messy, the party doesn’t have to end. The second diaper can be waiting in the dry pouch of a wet/dry bag.

And don’t feel bad if you don’t think you can travel and use cloth at the same time. Do what if comfortable for you and your little one. But you may be pleasantly surprised by how easy it can be. Even on short weekend trips away from home I often alternate between using BioSoakers and taking cloth diapers with me. It all depends on my mood. So relax on your vacation, and wherever you go this summer, I wish you all safe travels and wonderful memories!

P.S. Since we don’t have travel plans, I’d love to hear where you’re planning on traveling. Visiting family? Theme parks? Camping? Maybe a weekend get away without the kiddos? {That sounds heavenly!}

On the road again

Last month’s traveling really took me out of the habit of blogging. Now that I’ve been back these past couple of weeks, I’ve found plenty of excuses to keep me away from writing. So I’m back. I have a lot of new things that I found at the ABC Kids Expo, and I’ll be sharing them with you in the coming weeks. But first I’d like to share my experience of traveling with my 3 year old and 17 month old boys.

washing in the sink

GroVia’s hybrid option made packing BW’s diapers easy. The BioSoakers took up less room than cloth diapers and disposable diapers. The GroVia shells that I took also hardly took up any space. I knew I wasn’t going to have the time to hand wash cloth diapers in the sink or tub, and I don’t believe in beating myself up about using BioSoakers. Yes, they are disposable, but they are made up of compostable materials. I also love that they are fragrance and dye free. BW never had a leak daytime or nighttime with the BioSoakers. The covers were washed in the hotel sink one night. And they did not dry overnight. Ack! So I used the blow dryer in the morning to dry one for him. The others air dried in the car the rest of the day. The reason it took so long to dry was because it rained constantly. Every day we were there, it rained. Blah. {I love sunny Tucson!} The rest of the time that the shells were washed was with our regular laundry, and then they were hung to dry. It was so nice to have a healthy alternative to cloth diapers for BW while traveling.

I also will fully disclose that I used Huggies Overnights on my oldest, CW. It sucked! He leaked every night. Poor him. Poor me. {I shared a bed with him.} But I knew we were going to be so busy that we just had to suck it up and deal with it for a few nights. And I did call Huggies once we got home and complained. I am getting my money back. I don’t know what I could have done differently for him, and if you have a suggestion, please share.

Two other “cloth diaper” items came in handy while on vacay. The first was detergent. I packed 2 samples of Rockin’ Green to wash the GroVia shells and our clothes. And the second thing was a pail liner. I am soooooooooooooooooooo glad I packed a pail liner. It made the best hamper. Dirty clothes weren’t strewn about in the hotel rooms, and laundry time was made easy by having it all in one place. It was also nice to have our dirties separate from our clean clothes in the suitcases.  I didn’t have to be anal and rewash our clean clothes because there wasn’t any mingling with the dirties. {I’m weird like that.} Rockin’ Green washed our clothes up amazingly. Stains were non-existent in the boys’ clothes without my usual pre-treatment. I’m seriously considering using it as our everyday detergent. And to be totally honest, I did use a sample packet of Tiny Bubbles {GroVia’s detergent} one day for laundry. I couldn’t find the Rockin’ Green I packed, and I had a sample from the ABC Kids Expo. It washed our clothes just as well. It’s nice to know that once my cloth diapering days are over, I’ll still have use for my pail liners and eco-friendly detergents.

How do you travel with cloth diapers? Please share your experiences or lack thereof. I’d love to hear how other families travel with cloth or maybe don’t travel with cloth.

Dirty Little Secret

I have found that the accessory aspect of cloth diapering, while not mandatory, can be extremely helpful and oftentimes serves other purposes. That’s just me being wordy instead of just saying, I use my wet bags and pail liners for more than dirty diapers. Swim lessons, vacation, and clothes hamper are all alternate uses for my wet bags. I love knowing that I will be able to put these items to good use when my cloth diapering days are over. In fact when adding up cloth diaper costs, I really don’t consider the extras into it since there are plenty of other uses for items like my wet bags.

I currently have 2 wet bags and 2 pail liners. All are GroVia brand. The wet bags were a gift, and they became my only method of storing dirty dipes. This became an improbable solution as my baby grew {think  Mr. Stinky Pants} and my stash of diapers increased. Two wet bags were not enough to hold all the dirties in between wash days. My solution {this is gross} was to stack the wet diapers on the floor of my laundry room. Honestly, there was hardly a stink. Pee doesn’t bother me, and since they stayed in one small spot on the floor, no one walked there and no one noticed except me. I had to save the two wet bags for poo pants and outings. Soon this became a problem because of too much poo and too few bags. I had to talk to the Hubs about getting something bigger. He never knew of the dirty little secret on the floor in the laundry room, and once I outted myself he was grossed out. I purchased two large pail liners and a 13 gallon trash can with a lid from Target, of course. Ahhh, life became easier. I now I have 2 wet bags to use when I leave the house, and no more hiding wet diapers in my laundry room. Laundry days are even better because all the dirties are in one place. And to be even more specific that one place happens to be in the bathtub in the downstairs bathroom. The pail is located where I do all the rinsing off of diapers, so for me it is easier to have all the dirties in one spot. About 98% of diaper changes happen downstairs at my house. The 2% of the changes that occur upstairs are then brought downstairs into the pail in the bathroom. Another plus to having the pail in the bathtub is that I can shut the shower curtain and no one knows it is there.

Storing dirty diapers work differently in different households. Maybe a pail is needed upstairs and downstairs. Maybe a hanging pail that can be on a doorknob or hook would work better than a trash can with a pail. The key is to find what works for you. Luckily, Green Baby Elephant stocks wet bags, pail liners, and hanging pails. So find what works you’re your fam and get those dirty dipes corralled while waiting for wash day.

Tell me what works in your house. I’d love to hear how you manage stinky dipes between washings.